Cohen is a Jew. Like many Jews he has a sometimes tense relationship with his Jewishness. And those struggles pervade Book of Mercy, a little book of contemporary psalms: praise, anguish, pleading and anger poured on the altar of the Temple that is Leonard Cohen's heart.
Over the past few months, I read a psalm or two then put the book down, the way I read King David's psalms. For me, reading more than two at a time erases the mysteries I should be open to.
Here is a man arguing with God and all who are of his faith and land:
Israel, and you who call yourself Israel, the Church that calls itself Israel, and the revolt that calls itself Israel, and every nation chosen to be a nation - none of these lands is yours, all of you are thieves of holiness, all of you at war with Mercy.--27
In another he is a worshipper, a son of the Most High:
My heart sings of your longing for me, and my thoughts climb down to marvel at your mercy. I do not fear as you gather up my days. Your name is the sweetness of time, and you carry me close into the night, speaking consolations, drawing down lights from the sky, saying, See how the night has no terrors for one who remembers the name.--31
And this:
Like an unborn infant swimming to be born, like a woman counting breath in the spasms of labor, I yearn for you. Like a fish pulled to the minnow, the angler to the point of line and water, I am fixed in a strict demand, O king of absolute unity.--29
In 1984, the same year this book was published, the year Cohen turned forty, he recorded his most famous song for the first time "Hallelujah."
Twenty years later, Cohen, like Job of the Bible, would find all of his wealth gone. (Cohen's fortune was stolen by his long-time manager; Job's fortune, family and everything was taken by Satan with divine Okay.) He went on tour in his early 70s finding devoted fans and great success all over the world and, like Job, had what was lost restored.
In addition the tours and new songs, Cohen wrote poetry in his later years published shortly after his death. That book "The Flame" will be my next volume of Cohen's poetry. In a couple of years I hope to re-read the Book of Mercy.
First twelve books of 2022:
A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters by Andrew Knoll
Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall
Understanding Beliefs by Nils Nilsson
1776 by David McCullough
The Life of the Mind by Hannah Arendt
Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson
How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss
Unflattening by Nick Sousanis
Marie Curie by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)
The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche
Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen
